Printable View
Some of you may have ordered Ansel Adams " Special Edition" prints,my question and comment is how much sharper will this images be if they are scanned then printed on a printer.I wonder if anyone at the Ansel Adams gallery has thought of this. Anyone know if they are scanned then printed or are they done the old way.
Hi,
This right off the AA Gallery website:
Yosemite Special Edition Prints
Ansel Adams launched the Yosemite Special Edition series in 1958. Today, Alan Ross makes each Special Edition Photograph by hand from Adams ' original negative on gelatin silver fiber paper. Ross, a master printer and fine art photographer in his own right, began working side-by-side with Adams as his photographic assistant in 1974; he's been the exclusive printer of this series since 1975. Each of the prints in this limited series bears an identifying stamp. Yosemite Special Edition Photographs are available only from The Ansel Adams Gallery.
The SEY/SEPs were originally brought out to be an inexpensive but high quality souvenir of the park, something head and shoulders above anything else that was offered at that time. AA's originals were already rising in price, so he decided to have his assistant print them. These are still very unique and still relatively inexpensive for a photograph printed to fine art standards.
Alan uses a lot of masking techniques that makes printing these much easier. He always says that if AA had been using these techniques, the monster job of printing the Museum sets in the late 70s would have been consistently better and much faster. The AAPRT, TAAG, and AA's family probably won't allow the SEPs to EVER be done digitally.
Now, I am sure there will be digital projects in the future, it just won't be the SEPs.
Now if and when Alan retires, then who knows what will happen. I suspect Patrick Jablonski, former John Sexton assistant, might take over since he already prints for the AAPRT. But I think Alan will be doing these when he turns 100!!
FYI: former AA assistants who printed the SEY/SEPs: Don Worth, Gerry Sharpe, Lilliane De Cock, Ted Orland, and Alan Ross. Chris Rainier printed the Sierra Club "SEPs" of which I've only seen a couple. If your SEY/SEP is signed, most likely due to shear numbers and 10 year time frame, Lilliane printed them. Initialed? Ted Orland printed those. Since 1975, Alan has printed 80,000 plus.
CH